We set aside a few minutes most Sunday mornings to identify connections between unfulfilled Bible prophecies and current news & events.

Turmoil in the Middle East on account of the nation of Israel is the most obvious sign that we are in the Last Days. Israel’s existence again as a nation is both a miracle and a fulfillment of many OT prophecies.

• In the Book of Isaiah we read, “Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children” (66:8).
• In the Book of Zechariah we read, “On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it” (12:3).

A popular prophecy that almost everyone has at least heard something about is the Mark of the Beast. It is something, probably a biometric something, by which people living through the 7yr Great Tribulation will conduct all their business.

Just as interesting (if not more so) is the Image of the Beast. Here is how it is described in the Revelation: The false prophet tells “those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the [Antichrist] who was wounded by the sword and lived. He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed” (13:14-15).

• The image is man-made.
• People will interact with the image as if it were sentient.
• They will be required to worship the image as God.

Something strikingly similar to that is happening right now. I read an article in the NY Post titled, This church has an AI Jesus for confessions.

Excerpts:

Just in case artificial intelligence hasn’t been taking on enough jobs lately – now it’s replacing the Almighty. A church in Switzerland is now using an AI hologram of Jesus to hear confessions from Catholic worshippers, as seen in a wild viral video.

“I was surprised, it was so easy, and though it’s a machine, it gave me so much advice,” one awestruck worshipper told DW News while describing their experience with the Sermon-ator, located at St. Peter’s Church in Lucerne.

Dubbed Deus in Machina, the futuristic shrine features a confessional booth with a screen displaying the face of Jesus through the grate.   

Jesus’ cybernetic second coming was made possible by computer scientists and theologians from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, who programmed the bot with New Testament and religious information found online.^[1]